Retrieving History, and the Meanest Man in Texas

I neglected to point out for the history buffs among you (I know there are a few) that Marie Beth Jones, chair of Brazoria County's Historic Commission, is doing a series of articles on a now-demolished prison there called Retrieve at the Back Gate. Here's her first installment which interviews a retired guard and a physician who both worked there in the 1930s during the height of the Great Depression. UPDATE: Here's Part Two.

A BG commenter points out a book I'd not heard of before that's set in that facility called The Meanest Man in Texas, an eponymous biography of Clyde Thompson, a one-time resident of Retrieve who was once so dubbed.

If Mr. Thompson came anywhere close to earning that appellation, that makes him a pretty mean fellow, indeed.